Unit 8: An Innovative Business Case Report: Essence Drinks Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Essence Drinks, a UK-based company specializing in mango lassi, focusing on its innovation strategies and business case. The report delves into the differences between invention and innovation, highlighting the importance of innovation for organizational growth and sustainability. It explores various types of innovation, including incremental, disruptive, and radical approaches, along with the 4 P's of innovation (Paradigm, Product, Process, and Position). The report also examines the use of innovation funnels and frugal innovation, recommending strategies for Essence Drinks to launch new flavors and product sizes to maintain its market position. Furthermore, it discusses the importance of the commercial funnel, new product development, innovation business cases, and tools for protecting intellectual property. The report concludes with recommendations for Essence Drinks to enhance its product offerings and maintain a competitive edge in the market.

Unit 8 An Innovative Business
Case(part 1 &2)

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Part 1................................................................................................................................................3
Difference between invention and innovation.............................................................................3
Importance of innovation and how it gets embedded with organisation.....................................4
Types of innovation and 4 P's of innovation and how supports management of innovation.......4
Use of innovation funnel and frugal innovation in organisation. Applying frugal and funnel
innovation at organisation............................................................................................................6
Recommendations to essence drinks to launch innovative drink................................................7
Part 2................................................................................................................................................8
Importance of commercial funnel and application of new product development .......................8
Innovation business case and ways to access funding...............................................................10
Different tools to protect intellectual properties........................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

Introduction
Innovation means implementing new ideas which is brought by introducing new goods
and services or improving existing goods or services. (Freddi and Salmon, 2019). Essence drink
is the company which provide mango lassi in the UK market. Company is very famous for their
good taste and quality of products. This report will discuss the difference between innovation and
invention and also the importance of innovation. Further it will analyse type of innovation and 4
P's of innovation. Innovation funnel and frugal innovation are the technique which helps in
bringing innovation for the company will be analysed in this report. Report will also discuss
commercial funnel and steps included in new product development. Innovation business case
will be evaluated and various business tools which is used to retain and protect products will also
explained.
Part 1
Difference between invention and innovation
Invention is creating an idea to launch new product or process which has never been seen
before by anyone (Tarizzo, 2017). Whereas innovation is executing those idea of the product or
method for the first time (Cook, 2020). It can be said that when some new product is
manufactured or produced then it is said to the invention. While when change are made in the
already existing product by adding value to them is innovation. Invention means when fresh idea
is generated for the first time. But when talking about innovation it refers to the implementation
of that new idea which is generated in the invention process. For inventing new products
scientific skills are needed but while doing innovation strategic, marketing and technical skills
are needed. When new idea comes in the mind of scientist than invention takes place. On the
other hand, when company through market analysis comes to know that there is the need for new
products or upgrading existing products so as to increase the sales.
Invention focus on one product at a time because it is not easy so that is why it only
occurs for one product. Innovation is easy as compare to invention and also takes less time so
that is why can take place for various products (Grafström and Lindman, 2017). When it comes
to invention that it directly moves to the research and development team of the company while
innovation is not restricted to specific department because it is spread over different departments.
Invention can only done by experts but innovation can be done by any individual who have
certain skills.

Importance of innovation and how it gets embedded with organisation
Innovation plays vital role in the growth of company. As it possess creative development
and good quality of innovation is needed for the business for long term survival. Company can
reach towards growth by learning about creativity (7 Reasons Why Innovation is Important.,
2020). When business have creative skills then they can opt for various opportunities and can
capture new markets as well. Innovation brings continuous improvements as it gives business
chance to attain sustainability. So company can make chances in their packaging and branding
strategy as that can help business to get more customers. Effective manager will build skills
which are needed for creativity and contribute in company's growth. Innovation not always about
bringing new products but company should have make changes in their old products, enhance
their efficiency and should have also search for new products so that their profits and sales can
get increased. When company will receive more sales than they can also cut down on their waste.
When company is growing and innovating then they can attract new staff and it will also help
them to retain existing employees (Yun, 2017).
Company's vision, leadership, culture and teamwork can build innovation and
commercialisation
commercialisation means when business gets profits when they provide new products and
services to their customers. It includes customer support, marketing, HR, finance etc.
commercialisation is helpful in terms of planning and marketing to the company. Company have
their own vision and through that only they decide what to innovate. As essence drinks is lassi
manufacturer so with the increasing competitors in lassi they decide that they have to bring
change or innovative lassi. So vision of the company will decide range of innovation in order to
take place easy commercialisation (Mielcarek, 2019). One of the important role in the company
is leadership as they lead whole team and motivate their team members for innovation. Essence
drinks have such culture which encourages innovation. Culture plays vital role in bringing
innovation and how commercialisation will get affected by it. Teamwork is very important for
success and productivity of the company. Through team work new ideas can be generated
because there are many people in one team which can bring innovation.
Types of innovation and 4 P's of innovation and how supports management of innovation
Forms of innovation:
incremental innovation:

It is the most used innovation method. As this innovation form uses existing technology of the
company in order to increase customer value in the already existing market (Types of
Innovation., 2016). This method is used by majority of companies. Example, when company add
new characteristics to the existing products or services.
Disruptive innovation:
this innovation applies advanced process or technology to the existing market of the company.
Advanced technology is expensive and not easy to use and also every employee cannot use that
easily. If company want to survive for longer time then they have to adopt new technology.
Radical innovation:
This innovation method introduces new industries and also create new technology. Example:
aeroplane was never considered as the mode of transportation but with the help of airplane
development occurred in air travel (Albert, 2019).
Sources of innovation
internal innovation
leadership: when innovation is actually required by the business. By changing their strategy
company can foster innovative environment.
Employee perception:
Different people vary in perception as every individual have different thoughts, and they used
innovative tools as per their thought (Hossain, 2018).
External innovation
unexpected: this innovation is considered as the best innovation as unexpected innovation will
help company getting more profits and also increase their growth.
Market structure:
It shows commercialisation process of the company. Market structure will decide that when and
how innovative products will enter into market.
4P's of innovation:
Paradigm:
it uses innovation so that business techniques can gets improved. It focus on what organisation
should take place so that innovation can be done in the existing services or products. It increase
capability of the company.

Product:
it states that what improvisation an organisation can brought in their product with the help of
innovative technique in order to make them better. In order to increase innovative capability
company can increase features in product so to increase their sales.
Process:
Process involves supply of products, recruiting people and workflow of the business. In order to
do product innovation processing is needed. It is also helpful in managing the innovation
successfully.
Position:
one of the important sector of innovation (Akgun and et.al., 2017). As it shows that how
company will present products in front of the customers. Its timings are very important. If
company will present innovative product at wrong time in the market then it will be of no use.
Essence drinks can opt for incremental innovation because this innovation will use
existing technology only so with the help of this technique company can use old technology in
producing different lassies and can increase their customer value within existing market. It is
common technique and uses by many companies.
Use of innovation funnel and frugal innovation in organisation. Applying frugal and funnel
innovation at organisation.
Use of innovation funnel:
It refers to the development of process and product. Funnel is the complete process to
create and fulfil needs of customers in terms of products and services. In case of product
innovation this innovation acts as refinery system. Funnel innovation includes three steps. At the
initial stage wide mouth of funnel is required which collects large information in regards of
product innovation. At second step analysis of collected information are done. In Last step idea
which is chosen should deliver company services and should fulfil organisational objectives.
This method can also consider by Essence drink in order to bring innovation.
Frugal innovation:
This innovation refers to reduce unnecessary company costs and to manufacture valuable
goods so that company can gain good profits (Fernández-López, Calvo and Rodeiro-Pazos,
2019). This innovation can be easily implemented. Essence drinks can also reduce costs and can
add more features to the product to increase its value. This helps company in multiple ways. As it

is helpful in providing maximum profits by using few resources so that sustainability can be
attained and company can reduce their voids. Frugal innovation works opposite as compare to
standard innovation because it works on bottom to top approach basis. It can happen because it
provide more reliability and company can increase their customer base by using less resources.
So that is why this innovation is different from other innovation. Frugal innovation is not
connected with specific customers but takes large users within lowest resources. There are many
analysts which says that frugal innovation produces low quality of goods. But it observed the
main objective of this innovation then can be found out that it produces large quantity of items
by using limited resources and also reducing unnecessary costs which is attached with the
product but it cannot be said that it produce low quality of goods for their customers (Leliveld
and Knorringa, 2018). As organisation will never hurt their reputation by providing low quality
of goods to their consumers. It applies reverse engineering.
Essence drinks can also use it to produce large amount of lassies and also with limited resources.
Company can also adopt such innovation in order to make high profits. In order to increase their
customer base also such innovation is adopted as it provides goods at less prices so that attracts
many customers. So it can be said that this technique is ideal and can be used by many
companies (Knapp and et.al., 2018).
Recommendations to essence drinks to launch innovative drink
Essence drink earlier was providing mango lassi only gradually company was receiving
good profits with increased sales. As this drink was innovative for UK people because it have
innovative formula and distribution channel of essence drink is also strong. But after few year
they noticed that sales is decreasing because competitors has entered in this market. So in order
to survive in the market company should launch more new flavours of lassi. As they are
providing mango lassi only so they can provide strawberry and chocolate lassi and company is
providing standard packaging of lassi only.
They should increase and provide lassi in different sizes like 200ml, 500ml, 1 litre etc. as these
flavours are new and innovative and it will help company to get new customers and they will
also able to retain existing customers. When essence drink will launch different sizes of lassi
packets then it will attract every kind of customers like those customers who want to purchase
small size lassi can purchase 200 ml packet and if customers want to purchase big packet then
they can buy 1 litre packet.

Part 2
Importance of commercial funnel and application of new product development
Commercial funnel:
In this funnel all the potential customers are listed and then company does marketing in
order to get higher results and can also retain their existing customers. Commercial funnel is very
important for the company especially for the company like essence drink who is the lassi
manufacturer which is witnessing high profit every year. The main aim of this funnel is to lead
the company. As commercialisation of innovative or changed items or services is helpful in
attracting more customers. So it can be said that with the help of one innovative product
commercialisation can help in maximising its customer base.
Commercial funnel can help business in achieving their desired outcomes. It is designed so that
company can see customers journey. Here also in the case of Essence drinks it can be observed
that company is going through decreased sales and that has occurred because its competitors are
also providing same taste and flavours of lassi to them (Florén and et.al., 2018). So company
have to develop new flavour drinks in order to attract customers and they should have also focus
on existing product processing. Commercial funnel is required to that company can inform in
advance about new product so that they can search for the product. In order to increase
excitement amongst the customers, commercial funnel is used by the company. This can help
company in getting customers is advance only and at the time of launch they will receive lots of
customers which will increase their sales.
New product development process have eight important steps which can provide
innovation to the company and that are as follows:
generating:
In this stage company's external and internal analysis are done and also current marketing trends
are observed in order to generate ideas for new product (Mauerhoefer, Strese and Brettel, 2017).
So company finds out many ideas and from those ideas select one idea which can help company
in increasing their profits.
Screening:
This is the next step which includes screening ideas. Idea screening means filter all the ideas
which has been got from first step in order to get best idea. At this stage best ideas are picked up

and poor ideas are dropped. So Essence drinks can produce many ideas and filter ideas at this
stage.
Testing:
Here attractive ideas are developed in the product concept. Product concept means generating
new product and here new product is different varieties of lassi.
Business analytic:
a system has to build so that progress can be checked. In metrics average time of inputs are
added and product metrics are also added is that launched products value can be measured. By
calculating new sales it can be find out importance of new products. So essence drinks can check
their progress of lassi by using the metrics.
Marketability tests:
at this stage company has to tests group, making test panels so that valuable information can get
which can help company to make changes if there is any last minute improvements. After
making lassi company should have test at this stage so that can find out improvements if
required.
Product development:
if the product idea has passed business tests then the idea should have been developed in the
physical product so that company can provide or launch physical product in the market and can
earn profit from it. Although at this stage it is found that company have to bear more research
costs. As R&D department will carry the testing process to check that everything is correct or
not.
Commercialise:
At this step products are launched in the market and customers are buying it and team from the
company is monitoring progress of the product. Essence drink have to make sure that there
should be no shortage of products at this stage (Lokanan, 2019). Advertisements can be provided
at this stage.
Post launch review:
Here company will review the progress of the product and also finds out for the improvements.
At this stage essence drink will find out that how many customers are satisfied with their
products and how many are not.

Innovation business case and ways to access funding
Everyday working in a business, increases the importance of innovation in the future of
company. Essence drinks is lead by Mr. Akshay which has seen positive growth from the start of
business. The company launched a drink names mango lassi which gained a lot of attention of
the target customers. The company is operating in the UK markets and is achieving the rise in
sales it desired. The owner of the company is ready to bring in some innovation in their business
to gain the competitive advantage in the market (Iyanda, 2021). The company launched a new
business innovation strategy where the company is launching a new product but not leaving the
essence of lassi behind. The new product is made of different flavour. This provides the
customers with a wide range of products which have the style of lassi in it. Offering the mango
lassi is seasonal. Hence, adding new flavour in the lasssi will provide the company with the
options which are available for the whole year. This way the company is maintaining the taste of
their lassi intact. This is great way to pierce the market by launching an innovative product and
gaining more customer attention. The main reason behind the innovation is ensure the successful
outcome. The idea behind launching the different sizes for the drinks makes it easy for the
customers to choose the quantity they want. It avoids any wastage or customers not being
satisfied.
Just like every other business, Essence drinks also need a way which can help in
accessing the required amount of funds. Some of ways to have funds are:
Crowdfunding: This is one of the new ways to access the funding in a newly established
business like Essence drinks (Sauermann, Franzoni and Shafi, 2019). Along with funding, it also
helps in gaining a lot of popularity of the business. The process of crowd funding is same as
taking loans but from more than one individual at a single time. The working of crowd funding
starts when the entrepreneur will showcase the detailed description of what the business of
offering to its customers highlighting the parts of innovation. The goals behind the working of
business, plans to earn profit and the amounts of funds which are required are all mentioned out
in open to earn the attention and let the people know about it and can give money when they like
the idea of the business. The investors in this case are supposed to make the online pledges with
the agreement of buying the product or giving some donation. People will invest in the idea
which they believe in which makes it a platform to gain the review of the innovative product

from before time. One of the best thing about the crowd funding is that it will help in generating
interest and also helps in marketing the product along with gaining the funds.
Venture capital: These types of funds are professionally managed which when invested
in company can attain the huge potential. When Venture capitals invest in a business, they are
looking have equity and exit during the time of an acquisition. They also bring in their
knowledge and expertise into the business. They act as a mentor and a test which can tell what
the organisation is going through. There is a detailed evaluation of the business and investment is
done only when the company is desiring to sustain for long term in the market. Such funds are
important for Essence drinks to help in quick growth (Andrusiv, and et.al., 2020). Such lump
sum amount of money can help in growing the network and the business of company at a fast
pace.
Bank loans: Banks are the first places where the companies go as a source of funding.
There are two different types of financing offered by banks. The working capital loan is required
to run the cycle of generating the revenue and performing business operations. The limit of the
funds is usually decided by the stocks and debtors. Accessing the funds from the bank involves
the process of sharing the plan of business which will go under the evaluation along with the
project report. These information forms the base to have the loan sanctioned.
Different tools to protect intellectual properties
Intellectual property is the unique feature which can be created physically. Having a
single idea does not constitute into being an intellectual property. It refers to the creation of some
invention, literary work, designs and many more such things which can be used in the commerce.
It is protected with the help of law which makes people to understand and recognise the creation.
When there is a right balance between the involvement of investors and that of public will lead to
aim on the fostering the environment with creativity and innovation. An organisation can own
the intellectual property when they created it and the rights from the creator are bought.
Intellectual property can have more than one owners and can be sold and transferred to some
other individual or a business (Holland, Nigischer, and Stjepandić, 2017). Different ways to
retain and protect intellectual property are:
Copyright: There is no need to pay a fee to attain this protection. It is a legal term which
describes the rights of the creators on their work such as some literary work and some artistic

works. There is no need to register for copyrights work in UK, it is automatically copyright
protected when the work is original. The work must be fixed in tangible medium of expression so
as to qualify being under copyright laws. A copyright is created when the work is begin to create
and register is completely voluntary. It is granted by the public law and others can recognise the
copyright work. Long duration for the copyright protection helps in guaranteeing a better form of
protection to the intellectual properties. The basic standards of the copy rights are to be original
and this protection expires after some amount of time.
Trademarks:
Trademarks can be applied to picture, logo, word etc. it is sign which is company's identification
.If apart from products, services are sold then it will be known as service marks. For products it
is called as trademarks and for services it is called service marks. Both trademarks and service
marks can be called as trade names. Essence drink should have also apply for certain trademarks
which can be for their logo or for the new idea so that their competitor cannot use that.
Trademark is also required registration. In case of any legal issue company can show their
trademarks registration and sue that person or company who has used their trademarks.
Patents:
if any company invent any new product or services then patents are provided to them. Company
can take patents for new materials, processes or combinations. In already existing products,
modification can be made. Patent helps company to get security for its material or process as it
cannot get copied by any one because company has got patented rights of it.
Conclusion
Through this report it can be concluded that innovation is necessary in today's world for
survival. As customers preferences and demand changes very fast so company have to provide
them good according. Invention is finding out or generating new products while innovation is
when company changes something in their existing products. Leadership and culture plays vital
role in bringing innovation. Essence drinks should build such culture which enhances innovation.
Leaders of the company also have power to encourage their team members to bring innovation.
Report has evaluated types of innovation and also 4 P's of innovation. Concepts of frugal and
funnel innovation is also explained properly in the report. Both innovation if applied by the
company according to the situation then can provide benefits to the company in increasing their
sales and revenue.